


The Art Of Understanding

by EmoBean



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Eventual Resolution, Feels, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hatred, Multi, Short Story, Slow Build, Teasing, relationship, triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7243693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmoBean/pseuds/EmoBean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mika and Jepha struggle through a few misfortunes at school.</p>
<p>Discover why Mika is struggling, but beware, it's not what you'd might expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art Of Understanding

The Art of Understanding

Everyone takes their reputation for granted. They take their friends for granted, they take family for granted, they take normality for granted. They think that all of these things are something that everyone is entitled to; something that everyone has. 

It’s hard for some to understand how especially important normality is when you are in high school, how greatly it affects how we live and function. How drastically your life can change from your simple mistakes, creating a chain reaction that spirals down into your undoing. 

After this spiral comes the outcast stage, where the victim feels particularly isolated from their environment. The difference between someone who is an outcast and someone who is a regular human being is how present they are, how forward they are. Someone who fits in well is guaranteed to succeed in school – they’re set up for success within their environment because they’re comfortable in its confines.

An outcast would find it hard to feel like they fit in, because to make it through the difficult time period that is high school in peace, you need friends, and you most certainly need company. It makes you appear less alone, which means more than one might imagine. This is where Jepha comes into play.

He was mostly popular – one of those people that just click in, like a piece in a puzzle - and he was the first person to see me as I want to be seen, for the girl I truly am. He sits with me at lunch, choosing my company over his other friends, which to some, it would mean very little, but it mattered to me. A lot. 

For the first time in a long time, things were feeling… actually good. Which is not a regular occurrence for me.

It wasn’t long before we started dating. The day we started being together was the day that I thought things could never get worse. That feeling – that specific feeling of being wanted by someone. Things were rocky, but life was made so much easier for once because someone was there for me, twenty-four-seven, to take care of me and to protect me from those who liked to make life difficult.

He was the metaphorical bodyguard who takes the bullet for the movie star. The person who doesn’t hesitate to stick up for me, the one that looks out for imminent danger.

Things still aren’t that great, but for once they were looking better. But only the naïve stumble through life believing that a peaceful moment is to be felt forever, and I certainly wasn’t one of the oblivious crowd.

***  
It had been a few weeks of peace, meaning it was a few weeks of minimal torment. But as I mentioned before, a hiatus from torture is still a hiatus.

I stepped out of the bathroom stall, walking to the sink to begin washing my hands. I almost tripped over a slender leg as a short blonde - Tabitha, I think her name was – stepped in front of me. This couldn’t be good.

“Hello, Mika,” She hissed, scuffing the ground menacingly with one of her precariously high heels. I don’t know why she was so menacing – she couldn’t be more than five-foot-six, a half-foot shorter than me. 

I should probably say something casual, right? Something normal-sounding that made me seem totally nonchalant.

“H-hi, uh, what’s chilling?” I mentally cringed at how uncool sounded. That was so far from the ‘casual’ I was aiming for. She smirked at my awkwardness as her friends flanked her sides, each one clad in so many designer brands they could be mistaken for the chair in the corner of a rich girl’s bedroom that she chucks her clothes on.

“Not much, we just wanted to find you in a place where your stupid little lap dog couldn’t protect you, y’know… Jepha?” She sent a sly grin my way, switching her shoe-scuffing intimidation technique for a pivot, the drag of the cork sole squeaking against the dirty bathroom floor, the noise exaggerated tenfold by the silence in the room. The look she sent me said it all – she saw that he was my weakness, my Achilles heel.

I shuddered internally, casting a glance towards the door where another one of her servants were standing guard.

“Don’t even bother,” she picked at one of her nails, looking almost disinterested if it weren’t for her venomous smile that it was coupled 

“I made sure to pay someone to block the door off. You shouldn’t mind staying in here for a little while, you must love preying on all the innocent girls who come in here.” She winked.

I looked at her, appalled at what she was suggesting, “I would never, I swear!” She just smirked in response.

“Well we can’t really trust you being in here. Maybe you should scuttle off to the boy’s toilets, little one,” she smiled. 

“Maybe their level of class would be more suited to your own.”

My vision began to blur as I desperately tried to avoid crying, chewing on my already abused thumbnail. I needed to get out of here and find Jepha. Right now.

“We want to knock you around a bit first, but I’m scared of breaking a nail,” she waved at one of the girls by her side, the brunette looking at me almost sympathetically before knocking lightly on the bathroom door.

“Come in, Robin,” she stepped back as the door opened, a tall man I recognised as one of the seniors walked in. This can’t be good. 

“See you later, Mika,” Tabitha sneered my name before walking out, her groupies following behind her. I could hear cheers coming from them once they entered the school corridor, the congratulatory sounds cut short as the bathroom door shut behind them.

Robin smirked at me, flexing his fingers until some of the knuckles cracked. I cowered back, moving to barricade myself inside the bathroom stall. I braced myself on the toilet door, shaking as the thudding of Robin’s fists on the door became louder and louder before the sounds were coupled with the noises of the flimsy wooden barrier splintering behind me.

Please, someone. No one. Yell, get help! No one cares. 

I fell backwards as the door broke apart, landing roughly on the grossly moist flooring, gasping aloud as the wood jarred the skin that wasn’t covered by my shirt.

“P-please, you can’t hit girls, it’s immoral!”

He sneered. “Shut it before you make me throw up.”

***

I couldn’t concentrate. 

It was math, my most hated subject - cliché, I know - and the teacher decided it would be great to cover material that was actually important for once.

I tilted my head to the side, groaning slightly as my brain felt like it was being thrown to the other side of my head. My vision was spinning, my cheek darkened and my ribs feeling bruised all over, like someone had taken a meat tenderiser to my skin.

Jepha looked over at me, worry clouding his vision. He waited until the teacher had turned around before speaking to me.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He looked over at me, reaching over to touch my shoulder.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve had worse.” My brain felt like it was sloshing back and forth in my head, disconnected, pain flaring up from the slightest movement.

He smiled at me as I managed to grimace back – hopefully that resembled some kind of grin. By the look on his face I’m guessing it wasn’t reassuring in the slightest.

“Jepha, Mika, is there something you’d like to share with the class?” The teacher chided. Of course he had to do that; why do teachers prey on us like lions looking for the weakest antelope at the waterhole?

I shook my head rapidly, regretting the decision instantly as my concussion set in full force. Bile arose in my throat, eager to escape my body just as much as I was.

“Perhaps you would like to discuss further after class,” he glared at the both of us, a pleased look settling on his face as the class tittered quietly amongst each other.

“It was my fault sir,” Jepha piped up, ignoring my strong glare. “Forgot to do the homework, I was hoping I could snag her answers before you collected the sheets by the end of the lesson.” It was a halfway decent lie, the teacher looking disappointed yet somewhat like he was expecting it.

I could hear one of Tabitha’s groupies muttering behind me. I couldn’t care less which one, aren’t they all the same?

“Sir, don’t let her servant take the blame. She obviously started the conversation.”

“That’s enough, Vicky. All three of you, detention, tomorrow lunch.”

I groaned, setting my head on the table. I was prepared to let the ground swallow me alive, seep through my pores and bury me through to my stomach. It wasn’t going to happen, but it sounded like a tantalising subject.

Something light hit me on my left arm. I looked up slowly, trying to prevent the insistent pounding in my head from worsening. 

It was a scrunched up ball of paper. Jepha didn’t notice, too involved in the work to see who threw it. I unfolded the ball.

We all know what you are, Mika. You’re not really fooling anyone.

I cast my eyes to the bottom of the page, the drawing was-

Oh my god. I was unable to prevent the small gasp from leaving my lungs, only a few heads turning to me, looking at my expression, looking at the paper, then looking back to the board.

I glanced around, my vision tilting back and forth as I looked for the person who threw it at me.

Vicky was texting under her desk, the consistent clicking of her fake nails against the screen of her - presumably - expensive phone indicating she was way too preoccupied. That kid with the glasses would never throw something like that, he’s never even looked at me. The girl in front of me is an artist, there’s no way she was limited to drawing something that… crude?

I rose my hand, excusing myself to the bathroom and leaving without casting a backwards glance. I made sure to stay away from the girls’ toilets, locking myself in the disabled bathroom and hoping that every echo of footsteps in the corridor was coming from someone oblivious to my whereabouts.

***

My legs ached as I forced them to walk faster, my shoes scuffing along the degraded footpath as I made my way home. I was way overdue for a new pair of converses, but I have the patience to wait until my seventeenth birthday.

Jepha was silent beside me, lost in his own thoughts, as was I. I wouldn’t blame him, my own thoughts articulating themselves and bending in such a way that almost brought me to tears. I guess everyone can relate on some level. When it’s just you and your thoughts, your deduction skills are over the top.

Right now, I concluded that I was burdening the ones I love. I could see it, the evidence was right in front of me, I could pinpoint the exact moments that reach the peak of maximum difficulty.

The way Jepha was finding it harder and harder to fit in with his friends, spending every lunch with me not because of choice anymore, but because I was hindering his reputation, something that I knew was so important at times like these. 

The look of disappointment in my mother’s eyes as I tried to explain what I truly felt now permanently emblazoned on the insides of my eyelids.

Just be normal, she says, a normal teenager. I mentally scoffed. It’s highly unlikely her saying that would magically make me an average teenage girl. It was too late for me now, and I think that’s why she finds it so hard to care for me.

Even the ones I don’t like, Tabitha, Robin, my math teacher; they pick on me because that’s the world’s way of weeding out the weak from the strong, a morbid process of elimination. 

“I’ll call you after dinner, okay?” Jepha sighed as we came to the end of my street, the place where we were forced to part ways every afternoon.

“Okay,” I grumbled. He circled my body in his arms, hugging me close. It required all the willpower in the world to not let the nausea take over me.

“Listen, Mika. Don’t let people discourage you from being who you are. You’re amazing,” my mind was already doubting that, “and we’re still on for tomorrow night, right?”

I smiled, pain twinging in my cheek as I nodded.

“Thanks, Jepha. I’ll call you later.” I stood in the same place for a while, waving goodbye as I watched his figure get smaller and smaller before he disappeared around a corner. I stayed there for a while after he left, staring mindlessly at the place he vanished from. 

It was getting colder and darker out. I realised my mother was at home alone, probably wondering where I was. I wasn’t looking my best, meaning I’d have to think of some excuse that was believable before I arrived at my home. I took out my phone, playing something melancholy mixed with a little teen angst. 

Grunge seemed to be the soundtrack to my life. A mixture of power and sad, hopeless loneliness that made my life look like a glimmering jewel of prosperity. In a weird way it alleviates that swelling feeling of sadness that you feel past your ribs, deep in your chest where your heart is.

I walked down the street, keeping a stroll-like pace in time with the slow beats of the sounds in my ears, double-timing as I walked past a house that was thumping with music, intoxicated teenagers bursting from the seams like an overly stuffed pillow. 

A few people called out to me, yelling my name alongside a few vulgar phrases loud enough to seep through my earphones. I ignored them, turning the corner and sighing as I was greeted by the view of my house.

The porch lights were on, my mother sipping some kind of hot drink as she took in the sight of me, eyes widening as they brushed over my bruised cheek.

“Don’t worry about it,” I muttered, “some girl accidentally opened her locker on my face.”

I pushed open the front door, setting my things down on the hallway table, next to the photo of my family – dad included. I slam the frame down with a slam, close to tears as I push my way past the open door. Mum closed it behind me.

“I’m going to go to the movies tomorrow night with Jepha.”

Mum stopped behind me. “Oh… the boy?”

“Yes mum,” I grumbled, “the boy, who else?” I heard no other response.

She sighed, walking off in the opposite direction of the house to me, disappearing around the corner like Jepha had earlier, yet this time it was left on a bitter note. I knew not to try and follow her, she was trying to avoid having some kind of argument with me.

I had to give her credit, she was attempting to put up with me, which was very different to her usual outburst. It still didn’t soothe the burning behind my eyes, or the stinging in my throat. 

I walked up the stairs, making sure not to stomp. I walked inside my bedroom, slamming it shut behind me and sinking to the floor, soundless sobs wracking through my entirety.

***

The months were getting warmer as people started getting in the mood for Christmas. Personally, I was not looking forward to the occasion. People take their luckiness for granted at this time of year. Some people have family to share the time of year with.

We don’t.

Christmas was dad and I’s favourite holiday. He used to take mum and I down to the beach, where mum could enjoy the sun and the clean house, where dad could enjoy the blissful quietness and meet new people, where I could be the person I want, wear what I want, and not run into people like the ones at school. We’d fish, and surf, and swim, and everything was great. 

Unfortunately, life doesn’t honour those who lead virtuous and fulfilling lives, the ones who do good by people and live for the simple things, working hard for the ones they love. Life cuts them short, and some days I wished I was in the car with my dad when it collided with a drunk driver, another human who was too busy being reckless to understand what was happening. That was quite a few years ago now, and at first it was hard to accept, but my nihilist ways eventually conquered the sadness that stemmed from the event like a disturbed, ironic dog-eat-dog metaphor.

The man who killed him was doing community service without a licence, but no matter how much he was punished for what he did, it never filled that gaping hole in this family where my dad used to fill. That man’s sentence will never fill the empty spot next to where my mother lays, asleep, nor with it fill the empty spot on the rocks by the beach where he sat next to me. It won’t fill the empty spaces that come after my questions, the wind washing away the queries before the answers could interlock with it.

I guess my mother blames my current predicament on my lack of a father. The incident is apparently responsible for my lack of ‘masculinity’ – which she states is necessary, even for girls like me.

I don’t need masculinity. I am a female, one that decides to be far from the term my mother pegs me as by choice.

Mother doesn’t understand what I’m going through, and I guess that’s why she assumes so much – it’s her brain trying to desperately find an answer to her own questions and misunderstandings. She hasn’t mastered the art of understanding; I wouldn’t expect her to. A mother’s worry often clouds her judgement. If she was a therapist and I was her client, there wouldn’t be that basic motherly instinct that would tell her to rid her child of the thing that was causing it the most danger.

It was late at night and I was alone at home. Mum had left a little while ago without a word, just the screeching of tires. I was attempting to revise what I missed in math today in fear of being preyed on once again but the insistent thudding inside my head jumbled the words on the page.

My phone vibrated beside me - a distraction I accepted gratefully, Jepha’s caller ID flashing up on the screen. I hit the green button, laying back on my head and listening to the lull of his voice.

Moments like these were the ones worth living for.

***

As I woke up in the morning, I noticed the feeling in my head was soothed. Not quite gone, but certainly less insistent. 

I took a shower, a long one, as I had woken up earlier than usual, wanting to look better today than the days before.

As I finished getting dressed and started to apply some concealer to the flourished bruise on the side of my cheek, my mother walked in, idling – or hovering, as I liked to call it – around the door to my bathroom, peering in.

I knew she was going to say something before the words even left her mouth.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit much?” She ‘lightly’ suggested, obviously talking about the dark liquid I was framing my waterline with.

“No,” I replied nonchalantly, continuing to apply more just to prove my point.

She visibly bristled, leaning against the doorframe, desperately trying to keep the annoyance from creeping up onto her face.

“I just think makeup is supposed to enhance your natural beauty,” she gritted through her teeth, her façade crumbling slightly.

“Well, me looking like this doesn’t damage anyone,” I threw back, the hand I wasn’t using gripping harder against the bathroom sink. The insistent jabbing of her words were more agitating than she intended, and it was getting on my nerves. I swapped the eyeliner for a dark shade of lipstick, smoothing it over the skin of my lips and gauging my mother’s reaction out of the corner of my eye. “Unless you think it makes me look ugly?”

“No, it’s just a little over the top-“

“That’s enough,” I snapped. “It doesn’t affect you, so leave me alone!” I pushed the lid back on and chucked it carelessly to the side of the sink as I shouldered past her, grabbing my bag and looping the straps over my shoulders, locating and seizing them in my hands, yanking my phone off the charger and darting down the stairs, running out of the house barefoot.

I only stopped once I was around the corner, stopping on the path and lacing my shoes up before continuing on my ‘merry’ way.

Today was P.E day. I usually skipped the class, preferring to face the wrath of my mother rather than the torment of the change rooms, or the feeling of inadequacy that comes from a session of running around and getting tripped over.

This day was different. I wasn’t going to skip.

I needed to face it.

I headed straight to the change rooms, early by ten minutes. I got changed, racing outside and sitting straight on the bench, not missing the surprised look that my P.E teacher Mr. Johnson shot me. I was so out of place; I was hard to miss. Slowly, more sleep-riddled teens started to file in, Jepha sitting next to me and taking my hand in his own and squeezing it reassuringly.

“Okay guys, everyone stand up and follow me,” Mr Johnson boomed out in that stereotypical 40-year-old gruff voice that all gym teachers seemed to have. We all groaned, shuffling to the centre of the basketball court, Jepha still grasping my hand firmly.

“Okay guys, boys on the left, girls on the right.”

I froze, Jepha letting go of my hand reluctantly and filing himself alongside the boys, some of them clapping him on the back. He cast worried eyes back to me.

“Come on Mika, go with them,” Mr Johnson ordered like it meant nothing.

I looked over to the opposite side, the girls casting venomous glares back my way. I wanted to cry.

Slowly, I edged over towards the girls, my sneakers shuffling against the polished wood beneath them, the noise almost rising above the pounding of my heart in my ears.

Tabitha looked me dead in the eye, smirking. She knew what was going on. She had the look of anticipation beneath the gleam in her eyes, like she was waiting for a series of events to unfold.

“Mika, what are you doing?” Mr Johnson questioned, ignoring the giggles surfacing from the girls and the stifled laughs from the boy’s. 

“G-going to the g-girls side, sir?” I stuttered, cursing myself silently as I stumbled on my words, making myself look like a bigger fool than I already was.

“I don’t think so, move,” he edged closer to me, pointing a jarring finger towards the other side of the court.

“Mika, don’t,” Jepha begged, coaxing me to keep going in the direction I already was.

“Don’t tell him what to do!” Mr Johnson yelled, “Mika, go to the boy’s side, where you belong!”

“She doesn’t belong there, and you know it, you pig!”

Mr Johnson stalked over to Jepha, accusingly jabbing his chest.

“If her file says he’s a boy, he’s a male! Those poor girls don’t need to be bothered by conniving people like Michael who lie and cheat their way to get closer to those innocent things!”

Jepha’s face turned red, his fists clenching hard as his anger reached boiling point, the stove way too hot to prevent the water from boiling over.

“I don’t care what you think! If she wants to be a girl, she’s a freaking girl, regardless of what science classifies her as. A lot of people wake up every morning feeling out of place in their own bodies, but you know what?!” He yelled, the words bouncing across the court and echoing back and forth.

“It takes real bravery for someone who feels wrong about how they are to actually make an effort to change themselves! You have no right telling her what she is, when she is more courageous and kinder than everyone in this room.”

His words didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Vicky walked over to me, bracketing one of her manicured hands on my shoulder in a soothing manner, casting judgemental eyes on the poor teacher in front of Jepha.

“Vicky!” Tabitha scolded, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What’s right, Tabitha.”

“That’s preposterous,” Tabitha screeched, “don’t stick up for that pervert! He’s only doing this so he can actually get some for once.”

Vicky whipped around so hard I swear her head was going to crack off.

“For your information, she has a boyfriend, something you don’t have! I agree with Jepha. Being brave enough to delve into an identity that you had no previous part of takes courage, a lot of it. I think that she has a lot more integrity than someone who cheats and lies her way in order to take out the competition.”

She turned to Mr. Johnson. “Did you know that Tabitha payed Robin to assault Mika? I’ve got the emails to prove it if you want to see.”

The teacher didn’t respond, dumbfounded by the three students in front of him.

“No? Let’s go to the principal instead.”

***

It took a few minutes of convincing, but here I was, eating recess alongside Jepha. No one had dumped their tray on me ‘by accident’ yet, and no one had thrown their rubbish at me, so I think I’m off the hook.

“How’re you feeling, Mika?” Jepha asked, smiling at me from the opposite side of the table.

“Free.”

“Good to hear,” he smiled at me, picking at his own tray of food.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, cringing, expecting something to get dumped on me. 

“Chill sport, it’s me,” Vickey grinned, flanked by a few faces I’d seen around, in corridors and at lockers. The guy from my math class with the glasses was one of them.

“Mind if we join you?”

I stared at them, dumbfounded. “Yeah, of course! Grab a seat, there’s plenty of extra’s,” I muttered the last part sheepishly.

“Then there’s no problem with us not being able to fit.”

Everyone sat down with their lunches, lulling into a conversation that flowed continuously, the topic changing from one thing to another right in front of my eyes.

And I was in the middle of it, able to provide my own opinion. Fresh faces and new interests to connect with, someone other than Jepha to share with.

“Don’t you, Mika?” Vicky turned to me.

“Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.”

“Eating food with lipstick on, it’s so hard, like, you have to avoid getting it on your food.”

I blushed, nodding as faces turned to me, waiting for me to say something, anything.

“Yeah, same, sometimes I scratch it and it goes everywhere, or I’m too lazy to take it off and it ends up on my pillow.”

The rest of the table erupted in a chorus of giggles and comments, all because of what I said. I made people laugh.

“I have no clue what you guys are talking about,” Jepha grunted, digging around with his fork.

“Me too, dude,” the glasses guy – Tyler, I think – laughed. 

This feels great.

***

We parted ways once again, the fork in the road cutting into our conversation about the hilarious detention we endured during lunch where the teacher on duty accidentally turned on the heater while resting his papers on it and they caught fire, causing another teacher to burst in and start spraying the fire extinguisher everywhere.

“So, I’ll pick you up at six?” He stared at me.

“Yeah, hopefully I’ll be ready by then.”

Jepha sighed. “That’s right, you girls always take forever,” he hugged me, starting down his path with a wave over his shoulder.

 

“You know you love me!” I yelled, the words trailing into a laugh.

“Fortunately!” He yelled back, another blush arising to my cheeks as he disappeared around the corner. I turned on my heel, the prospect of meeting my mother barely dampening my ecstatic mood.

Opening the front door, I almost tripped over the shoebox laying in the middle of the lobby, a pink bow coupled with an envelope resting atop the cardboard.

Dear Mika,

I thought you might want to wear this on your date. I wish I could see you off, but work needs some extra help. I’ll be here when you get home. 

Love, Mum

I eagerly tore the bow off, my fingers sliding under the lip of the lid and lifting it up to reveal a set of light pink converses, and a tube of lipstick.

I accepted the peace offering silently, grabbing the two items and dashing up the stairs to get ready.

Things felt great. 

***

As I rode in Jepha’s car on the way back to the movie, the both of us holding hands over the console. I circled my fingers tighter, twiddling my feet together, admiring the colour of them. Mum knew me so well.

I guess it was her way of accepting what I am, what I feel comfortable being, and in a way it felt so good to be accepted by everyone I cared about, even the ones I don’t.

I’m not naïve to think that this feeling will last forever; of course it won’t. But I’ll let myself joyride the wave until it peaks and crashes over.

But there are more waves that will form, and there will be more breaks. But it’s a cycle, so I will always return back to what is good, and I will always feel this feeling again.

So why dwell on the crash instead of waiting for the next one to form? Good moments will always come back around, just like these waves.

Whoever wants to join me can, and the rest can be left behind.


End file.
